Product Description

Around the time of the Han Dynasty, from 200 B.C. to around 8 A.D., an overland trade route from the Mediterranean Sea to China developed called the Silk Road. This 4,000 mile (6,000 KM) route ran from the Mediterranean Sea to the early Chinese capital of Chang’an. Not only were goods traded from various European ports to China and the cities in between, but this route played a major role in the diffusion of Buddhism into China.

Silk Road is a strategy game for 3-6 daring adventurers who trade, buy, and sell along this historic trading route from Chang'an in the East to Antioch in the West. Players bid for control of the caravan leader to determine which cities to visit, where players will choose the actions they wish to perform: i.e. buy, sell and trade goods such as jewels, dried fruit, silk, etc.

There have been two games in which I have been somewhat
involved from their inception and through their development,
culminating in their ultimate publication. One was my good friend
Ty Douds’ Victory and Honor, one of the best trick-taking games
in existence. The most recent is Silk Road, which began life many
years ago as Valencia. Conceived by my good friend Ted Cheatham, Valencia was originally an abstract in search of a
theme. When Ted devised the Valencia theme, my wife Gail
actually created the artwork for the prototype. Eventually, Ted
collaborated with well-known French designer Bruno Faidutti, and
the result was Silk Road, which has been published by
Z-Man Games.

As the name suggests, Silk Road is set along the historic Silk
Road of the Far East. The caravan travels from city-to-city,
beginning its journey in Changan and concluding thousands of
miles later in Antioch. With each city visited, players will select
one of the action tiles, which will enable them to purchase, swap
or sell commodities in various combinations. Players best
beware, however, as the dastardly thief can foil one’s plans,
while the Grand Vizier can grant great wealth to the player with
the greatest quantity of the commodity he seeks.

To begin the game, each player receives three randomly-drawn
commodities, as well as an initial treasury of ten pieces of silver.
Tiles – one less than the number of players – are placed
randomly on each of the 18 cities depicted on the board. The
start player receives the caravan leader pawn and a number of
turn tokens (one less than the number of players). The caravan
then sets-off from mysterious China, and players seek wealth
and riches.

The first step of a turn is determining the caravan leader, which
isn’t necessarily the player holding the leader pawn. Each player
can make one monetary offer to purchase the caravan leader
token for the turn. The current caravan leader can either accept
the highest bid, receiving the money offered and surrendering
the leader and turn tokens, or keep the caravan leader token,
paying the high bidder an amount equal to his bid.

The caravan leader now moves the caravan token to one of the
next cities along the route, as indicated by the arrows depicted
on the board. He then chooses and executes one of the action
tiles available at that location. In addition, if there is a pre-
printed action listed next to the city, he may also execute that
action. These cities are particularly valuable, and often result in
elevated bids from the players during the first phase.

After making a selection, the caravan leader keeps one of the
turn tokens, and passes the remainder to the player of his
choice. That player then chooses a tile and executes its action
before passing the remaining tokens onto another player of his
choice. This continues until no further turn tokens remain. The
one player who did not receive an action tile receives the
caravan leader token and begins the next turn. This “choosing
the next player” mechanism is highly original, and can help serve
as a method to reign in the current leader. There is the potential
for one player to be constantly targeted, but in practice, wise
players will choose to target the perceived leader rather than
constantly abuse one player.

The action tiles are the heart of the game. Some will allow a
player to trade one type of commodity for others, sometimes on
a favorable 1-for-2 basis, while others will allow a player to sell
or purchase commodities. When selling, the first good is sold for
4 silver, while each subsequent good is sold for one less.
Purchasing works in the opposite direction. A maximum of four
goods can be sold or purchased per tile.

There are also a few special tiles, such as the thief, which allows
the player to randomly steal a commodity from behind an
opponent’s screen. The Grand Vizier allows the player to choose
a particular commodity, and each player simultaneously reveals
the amount of that commodity that they possess. Silver is
awarded to the top two players.

The game continues until the caravan reaches Antioch. Players
then receive victory points as follows:

5 points per gold coin

1 point per silver coin

1 point per goods token

2 points for the most tokens in EACH commodity. If
tied in a particular commodity, no player receives those points.

Resource management is important, particularly in the timing of
the conversion of cash into commodities, and back into cash.
Cash is needed early in the game for the acquisition of
commodities, but in the second-half of the game, but
conservation of cash is more important as the game enters the
second half. Whenever a player can sell commodities, or trade
one for two, it is a wise course of action.

While the decisions to be made along the way are not often
taxing or difficult, one does derive the feeling that your actions
are responsible for your ultimate fate, and that wise moves at
the right time will spell the difference. Some of a player’s plans
can be hindered by the passing of the turn order tokens, and a
perceived front-runner will likely be passed-by when passing the
turn tokens. However, the clever balancing mechanism of
crowning this overlooked player the caravan leader on the
following turn appears to be ample compensation.

Silk Road is a game of decisions and resource management that
is easy to learn and play. The rules fit easily on the front and
back of a single page, and the game plays to completion in just
over an hour. While the system includes familiar mechanisms
such as quick auctions, it also has some clever and fresh
innovations. It is a game that can be played and enjoyed by
both families and serious gamers, which is a big plus. I’m happy
to see this entertaining game finally published.

I enjoy teaching ancient Chinese history to my students, if only for
the fact that I don’t remember it being taught to me in high school –
all I recall is talk about the Great Wall. So I was pleased to see a
game that focused on the Silk Road of the Han Dynasty – one of the
major trade routes of the first millennium. Silk Road (Z-man Games,
2006 – Ted Cheatham and Bruno Faidutti) was also high on my interest
list if only for the combination of designers – Mr. Faidutti, who has
designed some classic games such as Citadels, and Ted Cheatham, one of
the biggest game enthusiasts I’ve ever met.

Upon playing the game, I was really surprised at the smooth, flowing
sensation the game produced. There is none of Bruno’s classic chaos
(well, maybe the thief), and it includes a good mechanic to force
players to get involved, rather than take a more benign role. Silk
Road is probably overpriced for the components you get, but it is a
good solid game – nothing fantastic or new, but more of a nice
easy-going experience. I enjoy the aspect of bidding in this version;
and while I feel that replayability won’t offer too many different
choices, it’s certainly a nice medium weight game for occasional play.

A map shows twenty different cities that are aligned along the Silk
Road, starting from Chang’An and concluding in Antioch. Cities have
one or two arrows extending towards the next city, allowing choices to
be made as the caravan moves along the trail. A large token is placed
in Chang’An to represent the caravan, and piles of action tiles are
randomly placed on the board, with one less than the number of players
placed in each city. Half of the cities are colored orange and get
orange tiles; the others are purple, where the purple tiles are
placed. Each player is given one gold coin (worth five silver coins)
and five silver coins, three random resource cubes (white – ivory;
blue – silk; yellow – jewels; brown – dried fruits; and red – spices)
and a shield to hide them behind. A random player is given a caravan
leader pawn and as many turn tokens as there are players, minus one.
The first round is ready to begin.

In each round, starting with the player to the left of the person
with the caravan leader, each player must either bid higher than the
previous person or pass. Once this is done, the caravan leader can
either accept the money offered by the highest bidder, giving them the
token or pay the same amount to that person, giving them the token.
The caravan leader then moves the caravan pawn on the board to one of
the next possible cities. The player then takes one of the action
tiles in that city and either utilizes the action or discards the
tile, passing the caravan pawn and all of the turn tokens except one.
This continues until all players but one have taken an action –
leaving no action tiles on the city. The next round then begins,
following the same pattern.

The action tiles are:
- Trade one specific type of good for two other specific goods (this
can be done twice by the acting player.)
- Buy as many goods of a specific type as the player wants to, paying
1 silver for the first, two silver for the second, etc.
- Steal one good randomly from behind another player’s screen.
- Barterer: This tile can be kept and used in a later city, allowing
the player to discard it to take two tiles and actions, keeping two
players from completing an action that city.
- Switch up to two goods of any kind for two goods of a player’s choice.
- Same as above, but up to four goods
- Sell as many goods of a specific type as the person wants, receiving
four silver for the first good, three for the second, two for the
third, and one for every one after that.
- Crook: This tile can be kept for a later turn and allows the player
to change a goods type on an action tile to a different type.
- Grand Vizier: The player who chooses this tile picks a good type.
All players reveal as many of that type of cubes as they want to, with
the player who has the highest receiving six silver, and the player
with the second most receiving three. A cube of this type is then
placed on the tile to show that the Grand Vizier can not be used for
that specific type of good for the remainder of the game.

Some cities have an extra action tile imprinted onto the board. When
a player chooses to go there, the first player may take that action
along with one other action tile. The game continues until the
caravan reaches Antioch, at which point the game ends, and all players
score their points. Each silver coin is worth one point; gold coins
are worth five points, cubes are worth one point, and the player with
the most goods tokens in each type receives two points. The player
with the most points is declared the winner!

Some comments on the game…

1.) Components: The large square box feels lighter than it looks –
mostly because there really isn’t that much there – well, not enough
to warrant the large box. The coins are nice wooden discs that are
easy to handle and use, although there’s really not enough of them for
a five or six player game; we constantly had to make change to keep
from running out of silver coins and finally resorted to using the
turn tokens (large orange discs) as “10” value coins. Speaking of the
turn tokens, they felt a bit unnecessary; and as I said, we simply use
them for money now. I also wish that the caravan leader token wasn’t
the exact same large wooden token as the caravan itself – people kept
grabbing the caravan token by accident. Still, the rest of the
components are nice – the board is a longer thin one, the action
tokens are easy to read and understand – with pictorial references
that make sense, the cubes are colorful and easy to handle, and the
player shields are handy to hide one’s money. My only concern is that
the price seems to outweigh the components inside.

2.) Rules: There is only one sheet of rules, on both sides, and it
is accurate and clear. A few details are not addressed, such as what
one does when a certain amount of cubes is run out of (tough luck),
and what happens in a Grand Vizier tie (hooray for everyone), but most
of these are common sense and can be worked out, although they should
have been included in the basic rule set. The game is much easier to
teach than I expected, teenagers and adults took to it easily, and
both games I’ve played have come to just over an hour.

3.) Auctions: Some folk don’t like auction games, but in Silk Road,
even though the auctions are important, they aren’t tiresome and
repetitive. Players can’t simply drop out of the bidding, because
they may end up without an action tile! One can afford to miss one or
two action tiles over the course of a game, but missing more can be
disastrous. An interesting effect that occurs because of this happens
when one player is being offered a bid that will drop them out of
taking an action. Is the amount of the bid worth them not doing
anything that turn? This decision process is my favorite part of the
game and can be quite interesting later on. Controlling what city the
caravan goes can change the course of the game and help yourself while
hurting others. Short, important bidding is a nice addition to the
game, especially when you consider the fact that you’re basically
bidding away victory points. I’ve seen a bid of “5”, but never
anything higher, and usually bids end up at “3”.

4.) Thief: This certainly feels like a Faidutti mechanic, as I’ve
seen it in several of his other games, such as Dragon's Gold; but it
does help increase player interaction. This is good, because even
though the auctions matter quite a bit to who doesn’t take a turn this
round, the game still doesn’t always feel very interactive. In fact,
there are some who considered the theme to be a bit listless and dull;
and while I disagree, I enjoyed the trading aspect in this game. I
certainly understand their point of view.

5.) Fun Factor and Trading: Players must control clever players, as
trading is ALWAYS beneficial – getting two cubes for one, or four
dollars for a cube you only paid one or two for. That’s a cheery
feeling, and even players who lose will end up with more than they
started. This, combined with the quick feel of the game (any longer
and it might get monotonous) keeps the game enjoyable for me. I liked
the trading aspect with the game itself, even though it would have
been interesting to make deals with other players. What’s neat about
Silk Road is that you can look farther ahead down the path and see
which cities are coming up and plan your trading accordingly. Buying
two cubes for three silver and then trading them for four cubes, which
you then sell two of for seven silver, gives one a bit of satisfaction
and kept the game enjoyable for me.

6.) Players: I’ve seen some that think that the six player game is
too chaotic. I can understand that the three player game offers up
some fairly deep strategy (it probably is the best number for Silk
Road), but I just enjoyed the bidding process with six players and the
slight trash talking that ensued during the process. It was
enjoyable, and the chaos wasn’t as bad (I didn’t even consider it
chaos!), as I’ve read.

All in all, I found Silk Road to be an enjoyable game, although I
fear that it may be forgettable in the long run. It’s an interesting
theme, but the theme isn’t deeply rooted enough into the gameplay to
keep players’ attention for many games. Games tend to feel the same,
even if they’re not, so Silk Road will remain a nice diversion for me.
I won’t hesitate to bring it out for non-gamers, as it’s very
understandable, and there is a bit of strategy and long term planning
in the game; not to mention a reasonable time limit. It just lacks
that spark of absolute fun that I’m looking for, so for now I’ll play
it only occasionally.

Tom Vasel
“Real men play board games”

Other Resources for Silk Road:

Board Game Geek is an incredible compilation of information about board and card games with many descriptions, photographs, reviews, session reports, and other commentary.